Howling For The Help Of A Snake
by Luna.T.Lawliet
Summary: Umbridge craves answers but no one wants to give them up. That evening, she finds a young Luna wondering the castle halls, knowing where the young Lycan was going. Seeing an opportunity, she forces her into the same room as her bound up friend. What happens when Snape realises that she's missing from dinner without a word? Slight SS/OC. Better than it sounds.


"It h-hurts so m-much..." Luna whimpered quietly from her place in the furthest corner of the cold office, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees as she tried to keep herself under some semblance of control. Eyes clamped shut in an attempt to block out the pain, she had no choice but to focus on the feeling of every single bone in her body begging her to change, to relieve the building pressure that the full moon brought with it. Her muscles screamed out in desperation, aching to stretch themselves out but she forced herself to stay in human form while she could, despite the excruciating pain she had to experience in order to do such a thing. A thing that should have been impossible to resist. Luckily for her, the moonlight couldn't touch her through the thick black shadows which consumed her.

A feet away from where she was laying were her friends, each of them bound to chairs by a number of unbreakable curses. This was so Madame Umbridge could interrogate them though the broken girl in the corner had served her purpose, to sweeten the little deal she was offering. If they didn't wish to cooperate with her, she'd allow the beast to get the answers she sought. Either that or she'd get them straight from her. In her experience, pain tended to loosen the tightest lips.

"Luna... You can't change!" Harry cried out, struggling against the invisible bonds which held them firmly to his chair. Her secret had been shared at the first official order meeting, causing a quick friendship to grow between her and the trio but also an ex defence against the arts professor who was more than willing to share a few tips with the young Lycan.

"It's ha-aaaaargh!" She tried, her sentence breaking off into a blood curdling cry. She threw her head back sharply, arching her back in a vein attempt to lessen the tension which was growing there but it did nothing. The three teenagers winced, hearing the painful snapping sounds that were coming from her fragile looking body though the professor, dressed head to toe in a shocking shade of pink, smirked at the sight of her pain. Really, it was all her own fault. If she hadn't allowed herself to be attacked, she wouldn't have been the filthy monster she was.

She would have been normal.

"All this can stop. Just tell me about Dumbledore's secret army." Umbridge told her, her tone sickly sweet, but the young girl said nothing to her. The only thing that escaped her lips were tortured screams of agony which bounced off the walls while she tried to fight off the beast which wanted to escape it's human cage. Chest heaving and breath coming in tiny pants, she forced herself to glare into triumphant woman's eyes. Their gazes locked though something bled into the young girl's gaze, something which sent a chill of fear down Dolores' spine.

Something that wasn't human.

"a-and in the o-onyx night, t-they hear h-her p-pain filled c-cried. I-in this w-world, we-werewolves are t-the first t-to die, th-their h-heads t-tilting t-towards t-t-t-the s-s-ki-skies." she recited, her voice cracking from the pain she was forced to bare by Fenrir, all those years ago. The words held a meaning to her, something that Remus had recited on the night they first changed together, hissed out between clenched teeth.

Vicious growls and snarls ripped their way up her throat, filling the room when the words died out, though she continued to fight against the curse which had wrapped itself around her heart and mind. Her fingers clawed at her hair, yanking and tugging at it until clumps fell out but it wasn't helping. It couldn't drown the rest of the pain out.

"Tell me!" The professor ordered, striking the young girl around her face, in a lapse of judgement for that was enough to distract the student from her mission of gaining control. The growls deepened an, before the eyes of everyone in the room, they watched as her body began it's agonising transformation. Her fingers began to stretch out, her nails growing into sharp points as her back hunched, cracking itself into position. Of course, fear rose up in the golden trio who were bound into their chairs, completely defenceless and unable to escape when their friend fully finished the transformation and hungered from human flesh.

Pulling her wand out with a yell of 'Crucio', Umbridge shot the beast, surrounding her in an emerald glow while she convulsed in it's embrace, whimpers and howls escaping her mouth. Hermione, unable to watch her friend in such a position of weakness, cried out to the teacher, pleading for her to stop but she didn't. "She needs to learn control!" she spat, increasing the curse to the point where the girl, frozen in the mid point of changing, began to bleed from her nose and ears, the howls fading into cries and screams.

Time seemed to slow down for those who were witnessing it, watching their friend's eyes roll back into her head, the convulsions turning into a fit and the blood dripping from her face and onto the cold stone floor of the office, matching the heart of its owner as all she did was watch with a somewhat gleeful smile.

However, her luck had ran out.

The door was suddenly thrown open by some invisible force, revealing a furious looking Severus Snape and Minerva Mcgonagall.

"Ms Goodwin!" the elder lady cried, disgusted at the way the student was being treated and frightened for the toll it must've been taking on her. She found it incredibly strange when the trio weren't at dinner so, as their head of house, she took off in search of them, recruiting Severus when he realised his own missing student. He thought it strange that she hadn't warned him of her absence, especially due to the time of the month, so with a wolfsbane potion in hand, they set off in search of their missing charges.

The potions professor released the lions with a flick of his wand before turning it onto the current DADA teacher, the point beginning to glow a threatening white colour. When it came to protecting the young girl, who had somehow wormed her way inside his heart, he would stop at nothing, even it meant harming a ministry official with his own curse.

"Release her!" he demanded, glaring at her heatedly, his onyx eyes flickering with an invisible fire which scared the children and professors in the room. However, unknown to them, his cold dead heart was cracking in his chest as he listened to her weak cries of pain.

A few moments passed, angry ebony into frightened mossy green, Luna fell from where she was suspended in the air, collapsing onto the floor with a groan. Hermione, Harry and Ron rushed over to her side, carefully checking that she was okay but they were forced away by Snape while Mcgonagall took care of Umbridge. Despite the fact that Severus would've enjoyed 'teaching her a lesson', he couldn't while his charge was gasping on the floor, her breath coming in short pants.

"Ms Goodwin... I want you to open your eyes and look at me." He murmured, a softness in his voice that the teenagers around him would never expect from him. Carefully, he used the sleeves of his teaching robes to wipe away the blood from her face, caressing her cheek briefly as he moved his hand away while making sure the others couldn't see.

Upon hearing his voice, her eyes flickered open to reveal an almost beautiful swirl of animalistic amber and human sapphire with a faint echo of self hatred that he was so used to seeing. The whites of her eyes had stained crimson with blood, showing the true extent of the curse that'd been used on her. To see something of that strength, used on someone so defenceless, was heart breaking.

"Luna! Oh my God! You're okay! You had us all so worried 'cause we thought you were going to rip us apart but you're fine!" Hermione babbled, trying to move closer to her friend but one stern glare from the potions professor was enough to stop her in her tracks.

"Come. I shall escort the three of you to the hospital wing, get you all checked up, after we've taken _Professor _Umbridge to the head master's office." Minerva said, spitting the title at her, covered in venom. With one hand, she gathered the students up while the other kept her wand pointed at the ministry official's chest, she gestured to the door with her head. "After you." Within a few seconds, the Slytherin and her head of house were left alone in the cold classroom.

"Luna..." he breathed, resting his forehead against hers for a few moments, his mind gently scanning hers to see how much trouble the curse had left. The thing about the curse was that the pain wasn't at all physical but mental and as she had a natural gift for legilimency, there wasn't any telling how much damage it had done to her. In his mind, he couldn't help but list some of the things which could've happened but he didn't have time.

A few moments into the search, she stopped breathing.


End file.
